(Proverbs 19-20; 2 Corinthians 3)
The nation of Israel had everything going for it. After all, when God has specially chosen you to be the focus and recipient of the purpose and destiny He has planned for mankind, surely He would pour out incredible mercy and goodness upon you. That’s certainly the case, but Israel squandered it.
God gave Moses the Ten Commandments to teach the Israelites how to live a holy and righteous life. But these rules were supposed to be just the beginning. In reality, their instruction was to be a tutor and cause for the Jewish people to turn to Yahweh with willing minds and softened hearts. There was a supernatural glory in the Ten Commandments; God’s giving of them to Moses caused such brilliance to come upon him that the people required him to wear a veil. The reality is that he represented the sinlessness of God in that condition, and they – in their sin – couldn’t stand to see such holiness. As these things unfolded, what should have brought life to the Jews actually brought condemnation and death.
This condition has continued for Israel to the present age. Paul describes this in 2 Corinthians 3:14-16:
“But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts. But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.”
Because the Jews as a whole have rejected Jesus as Messiah – as God – and continued believing that through the Old Covenant, they will find salvation, God has kept a veil over their minds to keep them from understanding the truth. Indeed, their minds are hardened such that some even persecute Christians for daring to appropriate their Scriptures and ‘distort’ them.
This idea of a hardened mind is not limited to the Jews and their particular situation. It appears to be something that can come upon, not only an individual, but also an entire class of people. It can lead to misunderstanding or misinterpreting information – perhaps even a willful rejection of truth – and result in actual harm to others.
Finding a diversion of shows or movies to watch is difficult when your heart is toward the Lord. The vast majority of such productions include gratuitous sex, language, and/or violence. Even shows that start out well can devolve into celebrating these deviancies. My wife and I had begun watching many series from Netflix (in the past when we subscribed to that) and from Amazon Prime that we had to turn off and walk away from.
Recently, we began watching the PBS-produced Victoria that began in 2016. (https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B01N7IM7RE/) For anyone who enjoyed Downton Abbey, you would probably like Victoria as well. It’s an intriguing fictional representation of Queen Victoria and her reign in the 1800s, which is exceptionally free from moral issues that cause disgust for many of us. (There is one uh-oh storyline in Season 2, but it resolves well.)
In a Season 3 episode, a cholera epidemic hits a certain area in London. No one knows why. The medical establishment is clueless and expresses both their ignorance and biases in diagnosing the causes of the outbreak. Only one doctor takes a true interest in determining the plague’s cause. He researches, goes into the area where the infestation is rampant, and as scientifically as he can for that day, tracks down the reason so many succumb, particularly women and children. It’s because he cares and cares enough to act that they end up finding the source and ending the epidemic. His mind and heart were soft and willing to listen and to learn, unlike those of his colleagues with their hardened minds.
You may guess where I’m going with this. The medical establishment of today is of one uniform, hardened mind as to the causes, prevention, and treatment of COVID and its related issues. From all over the world, there are numerous videos and reports that chronicle the deadly approach doctors and hospitals have used to deal with this planned epidemic. They have abandoned all sane medical practices by declaring that literally everyone has COVID that they see and must be treated accordingly. Any suggestion that a patient may have some other illness – particularly when the specific symptoms indicate this – is disregarded. Patients are dealt with as though by robots, uncaring and unaffected by reasoning from family or friends that counter their programming. I’ve labeled these physicians and their ilk zombie doctors.
There is a dark spiritual aspect to all this. I did a Prophecy Update on this subject called Puppet Master Conspiracy that details the demonic manipulation going on: https://rumble.com/vl06lq-awaken-bible-prophecy-update-8-11-21-puppet-master-conspiracy.html.
A few brave medical professionals have spoken out against the wickedness that is being perpetrated by their colleagues. They are horrified at what they see their beloved profession doing to people they are supposed to be helping. The stand these individuals have taken has been at great cost for many of them. They have been ridiculed and lost their positions at the hospitals they served. They’ve been canceled and deplatformed for daring to speak truth to expose the evil lies perpetrated by Big Pharma, the government, and the lapdog media. Their ability to get out a counter-narrative has been stymied and limited to primarily alternative media sources.
If they’d been allowed to speak freely, the staggering foolishness associated with the whole COVID fiasco – from treating patients only after they were deathly ill, to the extreme vaccine injuries with the massive number of deaths associated with the shots – could have been reduced probably by greater than 75%. This has led many of us to conclude that all this is the result of a planned genocide. Only extremely hardened hearts could be subject to such manipulation.
Is there an answer? Paul states it in 2 Corinthians 3:17:
“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”
Only by the grace of Christ can this be comprehended and stopped. Some of the medical rebels know the Lord well, others only in passing, and still more are secular. Regardless, I have no doubt that in one way or another, the Lord has worked in the hearts of all these individuals to speak boldly against the travesty they are seeing. It is Christ who causes these people to act in the interest of others at the expense of their own reputations and careers.
Those of us with a pre-Tribulation Rapture worldview know all that is happening in this regard is preparing the way for the Tribulation. Nothing of what is done in those horrible seven years originates without preparation. There is a progression of events that occurs, from devising the technical aspects necessary to institute the worldwide system for controlling buying and selling, to the conditioning of people to obey and eventually worship the son of perdition. All this and more paves the way for Antichrist’s Beast System.
It all begins with minds that are hardened. The only solution is Jesus. The world as we know it isn’t going to get any better. The demonic realm and their human minions are operating at warp speed. They will not relent, as they see NOW as their time to strike. God is allowing this so as to define His true church. When the conditions are right, He will remove us to allow all these wicked actors to have their way, even as He pours out His wrath upon the world.
While we wait for our blessed hope, let’s continue to stand boldly for Jesus. Perhaps even some of these with hardened minds will see the light.
[Author Note: Briefly, I want to set the stage for you as to the nature of most of my articles in this season. Each year I read the Bible through completely at least once – that has been my practice since I came to the Lord in 2005. I remain astounded at what God has done in my life because of that discipline! Each day I read from both the Old and New Testaments. I choose a verse from one of those passages and write my commentary and reflection based on that. In the title of my article, you’ll see the verse I chose. In addition, you’ll see the reading for that day if you’d like to follow along with greater context.]
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Gary W. Ritter is a lay pastor, Bible teacher, and prolific author. His Whirlwind Series comprises three books: Sow the Wind, Reap the Whirlwind, and There Is A Time. These books are contained in the collected volume of the Whirlwind Omnibus. Gary has been given the Christian Redemptive Fiction award for three novels: The Tattooed Cat, Alien Revelation, and for his collaboration with Terry James in writing The Minion Protocols, the third book in James’ Second Coming Chronicles.
Earlier this year, Gary released a four-volume set of Awaken Bible Study Notes that comment verse-by-verse through Scripture from a Biblical prophetic lens. He is currently editing a sequel to Alien Revelation called Alien Zombie Plague, which he plans to release later in the fall of 2021. Recently, Gary wrote a novella for the new Kindle Vella platform. That story is called Tribulation Rising: Seal Judgments – The Coming Apocalypse. This seven-part short work can be found at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B099Z462WD.
Each day this year, Gary has been writing commentary and reflections based on his reading through the Bible in a year. The intent in all his writings is to bring a strong Christian witness to what people read. You can see all his books and blog articles and reach him at his website:www.GaryRitter.com or his Facebook Author page: https://www.facebook.com/gritter3390. You can also see his older video Bible teachings on his Gary Ritter YouTube channel – look for the fish symbol, and more recently on Rumble on his Awaken Bible Prophecy channel: https://rumble.com/c/c-783217.